Patches (Natural Selection 2)/Build 236
January 16, 2013 Api * Added a version of Server.SendNetworkMessage() which takes a ServerClient object instead of a Player entity. Balance * Cysts now start with 50 health (down from 100) * Increased minimum distance that Cysts can be placed near other Cysts (now 6 meters up from 2 meters) Change * Increased alert priority for structures to be higher than Marine requests. * Reduced atmospheric light density of flashlights. * Voting a Commander out of the chair now requires 50% of the team instead of 30% * Server admin commands (sv_status, etc) will now print to the server console and log file. * Defaulted the map cycle to include all the official NS2 maps. * Removed "Beta" from the build number text that displays at the top left of the screen. Editor * Undo delete edge now restores smoothness attribute. * Fixed crash/bug when deleting degenerate edges. * Selecting many faces while using the Paint Tool should be faster now. Refactored code to lazily-cache texture sizes. * Snap menu now contains two snap commands. No longer need to select vertices to snap, you can just select a face or an edge and snap its vertices automatically. * Edit|Snap To Grid. Will snap selected vertices (nothing else) to the current grid spacing. * Changed objects in the skybox to always be drawn with an infinite far plane (fixes issue where the sky box was not visible in the Editor) * Increasing far plane limit to 1000. * Fixed issue where the sound browser dialog didn't unmute the sound system when previewing a sound. * Smooth edges draw as green (color customizable in settings) * Smoothed edges now working in game! Level version number bumped up again to 9 to contain smoothed normals info. * Added Edit -> Make Edges (Not) Smooth to control smoothed normals over edges (make sure Select Tool is active); Increased Level Version # to 8 to save smooth edges; NOTE: The game does NOT have smoothed edges yet, but the editor does. * Tech Points now have an "Arm extension" parameter to control how long the Hive arms extend. * Added viewport -> selection numbers to toggle the upper-right selection numbers in viewports. * Transformations now undo by restoring old vertex positions rather than by applying the inverse transform. Much more numerically robust (thus reducing numerical drift over time). * Disabling cinematic playback now actually hides cinematics (particles can cause performance slowdown) * Added Viewport|Play Cinematics menu item to toggle cinematic playback. * Only last gizmo mode for move/rotate tool gizmo snaps to grid; Rotate tool gizmo cycling works again; Pressing 'c' in output window clears it. * If grid snap is on, the move tool gizmo will always snap to grid for grid-snapped movement. No more extra move cycle mode. * Props with model paths that are invalid (e.g. missing files) show up as red boxes too. * Added prop_dynamic_animator entity used to affect animation state on dynamic props based off messages received from other entities. * Increased the size of the handles on the resize gizmo to make it more clear they are handles. * Added the ability to select between global space and local space for the move and rotate tools. * Vertex Welding should be much faster now. Only triangulating affected faces. * Added Button Emitter entity to the Editor. This can be setup to emit messages into the world to start a sound effect for example. * Huge re-factoring of mesh datastructures - should eliminate a lot of bugs related to crashes/freezes with deleting, welding, etc. * Props with no model will now show up as red boxes. * Fixed undo bug with extrusion. Added selection stats on top right of viewport. Added preliminary "check mesh" tool to help trouble shoot levels. * Fixed low speed when camera accel is on. * Added shift/alt modifiers for camera speed (works both in accel/normal modes); Fixed subtle undo-bug with weld/merge-face. * Removing the shift-hover-select thing that just spams undo items. Some other polish/fixes. * Fixed crash/bugs with copy/paste then undo. * Hardcoded hotkeys 0-9 for viewport settings (perspective, lit/unlit, etc.) * Made Tool Settings dialog taller to not hide stuff..heh. * Added an origin cycle mode to put the gizmo at the first selected object, so you can move a group of props without bad grid-snap. * Fixed editor bug where you could create empty props. * Fixed bug when undo-ing face merges. * Welding vertices will now auto-cleanup things like degenerate edges, duplicate edges (that were formerly different), etc. * Made camera acceleration an option (tools|settings|general|display settings). off by default now. * Fixing some issues with deleting faces, undoing, etc. Details: FaceIds are NOT reliable when faces are deleted, so each vertex now stores Face pointers rather than IDs. * Work in progress checkin for fixes to welding. Just adding some un-used stuff for now. * Fixed some bugs introduced by adjacent faces optimization. * Move operations, with/out texture lock, should now be a lot faster and smoother. Using a adjacent-faces-set per vertex instead of doing global face search. * On second thought, completely removing scale tool restrictions. Mappers use negative values. * Changed some scale tool parameters so it's less restrictive when sizing small-ish objects. * Added weld-selected-vertices command. Activate Select Tool, select a group of vertices, then Edit|Weld Selected Vertices (at the bottom of the menu) * New "knobs" for texture mapping (and other) spinners. purely mouse-movement-based. Up/down arrow keys still work if cursor is in text box. CTRL and ALT modifiers work on both. * Fixed lost-focus for hotkeys. * Feedback about how many faces were affected by texture replace. * Added ALT shortcut for texture replace; added F, C keys to move up/down when in first person camera. * Fixed annoying scrollbar reset with prop/texture browser windows. * Added Texture Replace tool (red paint bucket, all the way to the right of the toolbar) * Removed (-1000,1000) range limit on texture shift spinners. This fixes some of the texture lock-move blank-field issues.. * Grid snapping for texture gizmo. There is some weirdness with snapping, but it works. * Ctrl + doubleclick on face now adds a whole body to selection. * Paint(Texture) Tool now has moving handles, in addition to rotate and scale. * Switching to hash_set instead for faster "used asset" lookups. * Texture browser now has "show used only" filter as well. * Props browser now has "show used props only" checkbox. Same thing for textures browser coming soon. * Custom colors now saved to *.level files. * Custom colors now saved between selections. Next todo: save per-level custom colors to disk. * Autobackup filenames now include level name, e.g. ns2_refinery.autobackup2.level. * Tooltips for tool bar buttons now display bound hot key. Bug: If you change them, the tooltips won't update until restart. Ah well. Feature * Enhanced decals to have normal and specular components. * Added a button to request menu to give up a round (becomes visible after 5 minutes) * Improved Favorites functionality in the server browser. Favorites are now displayed at the top of the list by default and will refresh much faster. * Added server browser filter option for passworded servers. * Added -insecure command line option for dedicated servers to disable VAC. Fix * Fixed bug where tech would sometimes become unavailable after failing to research. * The server browser will no longer allow you to attempt to connect to a favorited server that requires a password without the option of entering a password in some cases. * Invalid servers are now removed from the favorites list. * Fixed hit registration issues with the Skulk due to discrepancies in the body yaw value on the server and client. * Fixed Alien spectator UI showing the wave spawn time incorrectly for players which are not allowed to spawn (too less eggs or minimum spawn time) * MAC jet effect will only be shown when the MAC is visible. * Fixed issue where damage over time or AI units cause combat state for their owner (attacking Hydras no longer uncloak the Gorge) * Fixed bug where the "Start Server" displayed 32 as the maximum number of players for a listen server. * Fixed "Couldn't load ''" error messages in the log (replaced with a more detailed error message) * Fixed issue where models in a skybox cinematic would be affected by the location of the skybox entity. * Fixed bug where the mouse cursor would not be properly set to the default cursor if a mod didn't assign a cursor. * Fixed crash when loading a script file that was completely empty. * Added CRC information to cached shaders to prevent issues where an outdated, cached version of a shader was used due to incorrect timestamps. * Alien structures will no longer glow orange when a Skulk uses Parasite on them. * Fixed bug where the rate-of-fire of the Rifle would be reduced with low frame rate. * Fixed composite alpha-blending for LOW particles (ie. Lerk spore cloud is no longer too transparent) * Fixed exploit allowing a player to execute a server admin command through chat. * Fixed unit status display not getting cleaned up properly. * Fixed shadowing artifacts when atmospherics were disabled. * Infinite loop in infestation blob placement. * Fixed bug where L key couldn't be bound in the key bindings options. * The "Use" icon will now display for Alien players for neutral use entities (map buttons for example) * Fixed Commander ping being visible on minimap when inactive (grey dot at world origin) * Fixed spit projectile visuals and damage application being out of sync for the shooting Gorge. * Fixed bug causing the follow camera to not follow players anymore if an Infantry Portal or Egg was destroyed right before the spectating player was going to spawn. * Added Recycle icon for recycle kill messages. * Fixed bug where mods would sometimes appear with no name in the mod list. * Fixed "PhysX: Particle data read not allowed while simulation is running" bug when multi-core rendering was disabled. * Fixed bug preventing some structures from displaying the hurt effects (smoke, fire, etc) * Fixed bug where armor / weapon upgrade in Marine HUD is displayed red at the beginning of a round. * units behind closed doors wont get revealed on the minimap anymore. * Fixed cysts not getting uncloaked by observatories. * fixed umbra ability not affected by silence upgrade. * shifts show now the correct echo radius for Alien Commander. * fixed bone wall being visible to Marine Commander without LOS. * fixed UI blood effect covering health / energy display at Alien HUD. * fixed bug where Alien Commander did not properly unlock abilities for himself. * fixed bug where clogs would not fall down anymore when they previously detached from another clog. * Whip Bombard will no longer damage their owner (Alien Commander) * Fixed bug where blink continued and was showing the trail effect when the Fade was already dead. * fixed recycling ARC Robotics Factory giving back 0 res (uses now the amount of robotic factory + upgrade cost) * Fixed bug where structures were allowed to perform actions which would be allowed only under specific circumstances (like building ARCs at unupgraded robotics factories) * Fixed Client error caused by the Flamethrower shoot sound effect. * Fixed bug causing loss of resources while spamming build MAC commands at the Robotics Factory. * Fixed exploit allowing a cloaked Alien to run at full speed if they were holding down the jump button. * Special characters such as new line no longer allowed in player names. * Fixed Builder always starting up in verbose mode. * Crash when playing an invalid sound effect. * Changed fog to default to off. * Fixed bug where mods could not be installed if the operating system's temporary directory contained UNICODE characters. * Fixed bug causing text in a message box on the main menu to overflow outside the box. * Fixed bug in the sv_ban command when banning a player not currently on the server. * Fixed bug causing the Fade to "teleport" to the ground while Blinking into walls and the ceiling. * Leading and trailing whitespace characters are ignored in the server list filters. * Filtered out duplicates when mounting mods. * Eliminated duplicate log messages when mounting mods for consistency checking. * Fixed bug where returning nil from GetAttachPointCoords would result in uninitialized data being used. * Fixed issue where having non-ASCII characters in the Windows user name would cause the game to not save mods, settings or cache files properly. * The Command Structure health will no longer be displayed for enemy structures when they spawn in a nearby room. * Fixed crash after alt-tabbing. * Removed the "Attack" button from the ARC as it is not needed and was causing some problems. * Fixed crash during precaching when a cinematic couldn't be loaded. * Signaled Steam to stop refreshing the server pings when connecting to a server to avoid cases where the routers NAT table overflowed. * Fixed issue where LaunchPad didn't properly specify the -game command line parameter when running NS2. * Crash when acquiring physics models from different threads. * Fixed bug where collision detection would fail on bodies which had extreme off-axis scaling applied to them (affected Harvester flinch animation) * Fixed bug allowing the Alien Commander to cancel research on a lifeform egg at the end of research, gaining back the resource cost but not canceling the research. * Fixed bug where ARCs didn't fire at targets when they had an attack order. They still need some work for actually listening to attack orders though. #3921. * Fixed error when starting Explore mode. * Fixed bug where Crags were getting too much health. * Fixed crash when a render_setup file could not be parsed due to improper formatting. * Fixed bug where text with multiple lines was not properly printed to the console. * Fixed bug where the spinner on the loading screen did not display if texture quality was set to medium. * Fixed bug where the server would leak memory under some circumstances. * The ghost Power Node no longer takes damage, fixes a problem where the Power Node could not be rebuilt after being destroyed in some cases. * Fixed rare bug where a Hive could become invulnerable if it was killed in the same frame as it finishes building. * Fixed sound bug causing ambient sounds in the world to not play correctly. * Fixed unbuilt shifts being able to generate eggs. * Fixed Exo and Mine tooltips. * Fixed regeneration effect showing up in combat. * Fixed the "filter modded servers" option not always working correctly in the server browser. * Fixed ARC targeting issues. * Fixed already recycled units still taking damage. * Added protection against speed hacking. * Fixed issues when downloading a mod on the server that didn't contain a valid title. * Fixed Flamethrower damaging the owner. * Fixed bug causing the pistol to sometimes lockup, preventing the player from shooting. * Fixed various crashes when a system runs out of video memory. * Fixed issue where pre-evolving eggs were not valid for respawning. * Fixed bug where resource would be lost if the Commander clicks on pre-evolve on an egg which had already a player assigned. * Fixed bug causing Mines to give Marines weld orders after they had taken damage. * Fixed hallucinated structures appear unbuilt. * Fixed bug where Commander Alerts were not 100% responsive to player input. * Fixed issue where the main menu would be displayed for a single frame when launching the game directly into a map or a server. * Fixed bug causing weapons to "teleport" back to where they were last equipped when a Marine dies. * Fixed error in the dedicated server documentation specifying how to create .htpasswd files. * Added detailed error messages when a .htpasswd file is not properly constructed. * The game will no longer allow switching to a map that doesn't exist (causing all Clients to be disconnected) * Fixed bug causing the Command Station to display the "Start commanding" help text while unbuilt or while the team already has a Commander. * Fixed bug causing the Hive to display the "Start commanding" help text while unbuilt. * Changed the default Taunt key to T instead of Q to prevent a conflict with Request Health. * Fixed Server script error caused by a game ending while the teams were unbalanced. * Fixed issue where a mod could crash the game by specifying an invalid index when querying the list of servers. * Fixed issue where requesting the server list could overflow or crash some modems. * Load-time optimization: Caching some pathing data, so loads should be faster after loading a map for the first time. * Added a hint for the NVIDIA Optimus driver to use the high performance GPU. * Fixed rare problem in the Main Menu caused by the options file becoming corrupted. * Fixed bug where mod names would sometimes be displayed as ??? * Fixed bug in the "Quick Join" feature. * Fixed bug where mods could not be installed through the web administration interface. * Fixed bug where regeneration effect was visible while cloaked. * Server Browser: "Filter Modded" checkbox now saved. * Fixed Hydras not interacting with nutrient mist. * Fixed Couldn't open "" error message. * Deleting Unicode characters in TextInput now works. * The server browser scroll bar now resets when the menu is displayed and when the "Refresh" button is pressed. * Fixed rare script error caused by getting a new ability in the same frame an Alien was destroyed. * Reduced bloom flicker, courtesy of 'slime' from the forums. Thanks! * Fixed "select all Marines" icon in Marine Commander HUD. * Fixed popping of Infestation when it becomes relevant to a client. * Fixed hitching when moving fast near Infestation. * Fixed multi-threading crash when starting a listen server. * Removed badges from main menu until we can hook them up properly. This fix is Brian-approved. * Don't interpolate vectors that are too far apart (for cleaner camera cuts / teleportation) * Fixed problem with MACs and Drifters being able to leave the world. * Update view angles before firing weapon (fixes some hitreg issues) * Music volumes properly set now to respect the options slider. * Fixed bug causing the Command Station to be closed without a Commander inside in some cases. * Fixed bug where the cloaking effect was not smoothly animated on the client. * Fixed taking damage sound not playing for a Marine in a Lerk Spore Cloud. * Fixed install script. * Unwhitelisted all mods. * Unwhitelisted NS2Stats. We felt we needed to do this because script errors were preventing people from playing NS2. Hopefully we'll have a better fix for this post 1.0. * Fixed position of message box in the "Play Now" menu. * Fixed bug in "Play Now" menu if there were no servers available. * Fixed shifts not dissolving after death. * Got rid of some lag. * Fixed problem where the Commander buttons menu would sometimes get out of sync with the server, preventing placement of structures until the tab is changed. * Fixed hatch ability costing no resources. * Fixed celerity working when sneaking / being cloaked. * Fixed Alien buy menu not unselecting upgrades when the upgrade structure gets destroyed. * Fixed missing prop in Tram causing holes in the Tram doors. * Fixed wrong icons in hallucination / echo menu. * Added missing Hydra icon. * Fixed nutrient mist effect showing up for enemies on cloaked structures. * Fixed nutrient mist showing up on unbuilt structures. Ifdef * _SHIP_RELEASE to choose. Improvement * The Gorge and Welder now award points for healing. * Added "reconnect" command which is the same as "retry" (reconnects to the last server you were on) * Added sv_cheats admin command to turn cheats on and off. * 'Sound volume' now only controls the volume of sound effects allowing music and voice volume to be set independently. * Added time out to Stomp per Marine, to prevent animations going crazy and Onos being able to disable a Marine permanently when next to a shift. * Easier application of Fade vortex. * The "Update" button in the server browser now changes text when finished updating servers. * Steam overlay based web views moved over to in-game web view. * Added more loading screen tooltips. * Added a display to the server browser to show the number of servers in the list. * Fixed Flamethrowers not creating flame residues. * The "connection problems" icon is displayed in yellow or red depending on the "severity" of the problem. * Replaced script error with a warning message when a server config file is ill-formed. * Added server list filter option to display favorites only. * Added option to disable camera animations. * The key bindings menu now displays key conflicts in red. * The key bindings menu saves key changes as you make them. * Added main menu option to select armor type. * Replaced outdated Skulk tutorial videos (Thanks Skie!) * Improved health/armor prediction. * Custom color for evolved upgrade icons in Alien buy menu. Optimization * improved refreshing of the server list (about 10 times faster) * Optimized batching of decals with the same material. * New graphics option for particle quality - if you experience low frame rate during combat-heavy scenarios, keep this at LOW (the default). * Changed .polygons files for particle materials to only be loaded once. * Improved the performance of lighting calculations. * Changed fullscreen passes to be rendered using a single triangle rather than a two triangle quad to eliminate overshading pixels along the diagonal. * Improved bloom performance (thanks Alexander Szpakowski!) * Fixed bug where all models in a level were loaded twice during the loading process. * Sped up Infestation rendering. Optimziation * * Streamlined access of the material polygons for particle systems. * Setup special edition and normal Marine models to share animations (reduces client and server memory usage by ~400MB) Sdk * Fixed hot-loading of material files in the Viewer. * Added support for floating point parameters in material files. * Added a menu option for showing/hiding the Properties window in the Cinematic Editor. * Added additional Fade and Gorge animation MAX files for reference. * Added "copy" generator to the render pipeline configuration file, which copies one texture into another. * Fixed potential crash when the render pipeline requested a parameter which wasn't defined in the shader template (now reports an error) * Added Server.GetNumPlayers() and Server.GetMaxPlayers() functions. * Removed SoundEventInstance:SetPropertyInt and SoundEventInstance:SetPropertyFloat functions (have more specific replacements and are emulated in the compatibility layer) * Changed ambient sounds in the game to sound the same as ambient sounds in the Editor. * Fixed compatibility with models exported from OpenCOLLADA. * Removed the Script documentation link from the Launch Pad because it doesn't exist. * Added a link to open the example assets directory in the Launch Pad. * Added the ability to specify which object "zones" are rendered in a particular stage of the pipeline with the zones_mask parameter. * Added Shared.ReportStatistics function. * Added compatibility mechanism for handling changes to the SDK. * Added the ability to specify default values for settings in a render_setup file. * Added Clear Level menu option in the Cinematic Editor to clear out the currently set level file. * Fixed issues with COLLADA files that contained instance_material nodes. * Fixed issue where COLLADA files that referenced textures with spaces in the file name would not be properly loaded if the file name used a relative path. * Fixed loading of COLLADA models in the Viewer. * Enhanced the sound picker with a hierarchical folder display. * Added support for hearing sounds effects placed in the level in the Editor. * Added support for displaying cinematics in the Editor. * Added support for displaying web pages in game. * Added a second parameter to the callback called from Shared.SendHTTPRequest in the case of an error, which specifies the error message. * Changed models to use a default material if one wasn't specified in the imported file. * Added the ability to specify "passes" for build rules in the Builder to setup simple dependency relationships. * Added SoundEffectInstance:SetCoords() function. * Fixed crash and added an error message when the bones for a model don't match the model that is being referenced for animations. * Fixed crash when loading a COLLADA file exported by OpenCollada. * Added Client.GetServerIsSecure function to determine if a server has VAC enabled. * Added an optional callback function to Client.RefreshServer. * Fixed issue where passing invalid value to some script functions would report a script error, but continue execution. * Added Client.GetServerIsModded and Client.GetServerTickRate functions. * Added Client.RequestServerDetails function which must be called before a server's key/values can be queries. * Added Client.GetIsDlcAuthorized function. Server * Added auto-kick AFK players feature. Add auto_kick_afk_time (seconds until an AFK player is kicked) and auto_kick_afk_capacity (from 0 to 1, how full the server is to enabled auto-kicking) to your ServerConfig.json file to use. * Added admin command: "sv_auto_kick_afk 120 0.6". This will enable auto-kicking AFK players after 2 minutes when the server is at least 60% full. Use "sv_auto_kick_afk 0 0" to disable auto-kicking. ns2_docking * Added vent from Lockers to Maintenance * Redesigned East Wing * Tweaked commanders view around Terminal and Landing Pad * Adjusted the lower windows in Terminal * Changed the lighting in the lower half of Maintenance * Removed the broken railing in Courtyard to Lockers * Fixed occlusion gap in Stability * Fixed Drifter spawn issue in Generator * Added in moving train to Departures * Moved Departures Power Node * Added some extra cover in Maintenance * Moved Terminals tech point and starting ip slightly to help with pathing * Deleted Courtyard Resource Point * Moved Cafeteria Techpoint closer to the window * Fixed cyst placement issue in Courtyard * Deleted one of the lockers in Locker Rooms to fix a pathing bug * Changed how Courtyard vent leads to Departures * Fixed cyst placement issue in Generator ns2_tram * Floating faces in Shipping removed from commander view. * Fixed greybox textures visible through Shipping windows. * Removed door prop at Shipping's west entrance from commander view. * Pipes in Warehouse and Elevator Transfer with no collisions fixed. * Added collision smoothing to pipe in Mezzanine. * Cleaned up Commander View in Observation->Elevator Transfer area. ns2_summit * Fixed invisible hitbox between the pipes in front of the Sub Access vent * Fixed stuck point in the chairs in Computer Lab * Rotated crate in Sub Access corridor towards Computer Lab to provide some cover * Cleaned up Commander View Category:Patches